Monday, February 7, 2011

The UK government realize the huge cost of family breakdown

Just imagine if New Zealand adopted the same approach? Yeah right. The Family Court and CYFS both encourage the destruction of the kiwi family as the fractured family business is big bucks in the land where children are abused in huge numbers and suicide rates are rapidly escalating. New Zealand is one very sick country with many social problems caused through the breakdown of the family. Does our government care? Just look at youth suicide and teenage pregancies for the answer. They couldn't give a flying f about kiwi kids!

Couples will receive free counselling sessions to help them stay together as part of a Government drive to support marriage and cut down the cost of family breakdown.

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent

Ministers believe that putting taxpayers’ money towards encouraging couples to marry and stick together could end up saving billions in future, including millions of pounds a year in welfare bills.

In a major speech this week, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will highlight the example of Norway, where divorce rates have fallen for the last 15 years after the government there introduced a state-sponsored “relationship education programme”.

Under a £30 million programme of “relationship support,” British couples will in future be able to attend counselling sessions in Sure Start Children’s Centres.

Cohabiting partners with children as well as married couples will be offered the sessions if they are going through “relationship stress,” with advice given on how to stay together.

Those who do decide to part will receive counselling on how to “minimise the negative impacts for children when relationships unfortunately breakdown,” officials said.

The budget for counselling has been increased from only £5 million this year.

But Mr Duncan Smith will justify the expenditure, which comes at a time of severe cuts across the public sector, by pointing to research which suggests that the cost to the taxpayer of family breakdown is as high as £24 billion a year.

By investing now he will say that money can be saved on additional benefits such as tax credits, income support and housing benefit for single parents and their children who are left in financial distress after being abandoned following a family break up.

Under a shake up of the benefit system, he will pledge that couples will be rewarded for staying together, receiving more money than single parents in the long term.

And in his speech, Mr Duncan Smith will also argue that it is right that the Government supports the institution of marriage, because those who get wed are more likely to stay together and so reduce the burden on the state of caring for the children of broken relationships.

He will say: “Government cannot and should not try to lecture people or push them on this matter. But it is quite legitimate to ensure people have the opportunity to achieve their aspirations to marry.”

Eight out of 10 couples who break up are unmarried, and there are now two million single mothers – twice as many as there were 25 years ago.

According to current trends, nearly half of the babies born this year will be brought up in broken homes, an increase of 10 per cent since the late 1980s.

As part of the relationship support programme, couples can take advantage of phone and online counselling sessions with the charity Relate.

They can also use a Government-backed website, called the Couple Connection, which is currently featuring advice suggesting that men buy their partner a card on Valentine’s Day, even if they themselves are cynical about the holiday.

The website shares the example of Adam from Essex, who says: “I think Valentine’s Day is a massive con and I’ve never really done anything for it.

“But then one year my girlfriend just exploded – all this stuff about how I couldn’t care about her if I couldn’t even be bothered to get her a card.

“I didn’t realise I’d upset her so much and all she’d wanted me to do is show that I was thinking about her.”